The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain, and Romania, 1870–1945

5. Considering Alternatives

The analyses in chapters 2 through 4 have argued that the development of voluntary associations was a major factor in the emergence of fascism in Italy, Spain, and Romania. However, readers familiar with comparative analyses of fascism may rightly wonder how these cases fit with explanations that are not centered on civil society (Carsten 1982; Linz 2003; Luebbert 1991; Mann 2004; Moore 1993; Payne 1995; Poulantzas 1970; Skocpol 1973). It is the central task of this chapter to consider this issue. Among the variety of theories that attempt to explain the rise of fascism, two broad streams of scholarship are evident. The first, exemplified by Barrington Moore Jr.’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, is broadly Marxian. Moore’s central argument holds that fascist regimes are connected to late and uneven capitalist development, producing a medium-strength bourgeoisie allied with labor-repressive agrarians. The second is Weberian, and in contrast to the Marxian focus on class relations, concentrates on states. For scholars in this tradition, fascism was closely connected to the survival of old regimes that could form a rallying point for conservatives into the modern period. To what extent do these approaches form compelling alternatives to the Gramscian account that I have developed so far? This chapter briefly Considering Alternatives 5 150 The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe summarizes the Moorian and Weberian arguments and then examines the evidence for them in Italy, Spain, and Romania. I then consider two cases, Hungary and Germany, that would seem initially to confirm the Moorian and Weberian arguments and suggest how these cases might be better understood in terms of the Gramscian framework developed in earlier chapters. The Moore Thesis: Authoritarianism and Labor Repression Perhaps the most influential explanation of interwar fascism is that associated with the name of Barrington Moore Jr. The Moore thesis is a broadly Marxian argument that explains fascism as a regime form appropriate to semiperipheral capitalist societies. For thinkers in this tradition interwar fascism was the result of an alliance among the state, a medium-strength bourgeoisie, and laborrepressive agrarians to confront the twin challenges of geopolitical and geoeconomic competition and peasant and worker insurgency. This set of conditions, for Moore and his followers, is the historical legacy of a missing bourgeois revolution (Mahoney 2003: 138–139; Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992: 14).1 Moore’s argument depends centrally on the notion of labor-repressive agriculture , a concept that requires some explanation. Moore, following a common Marxist argument, distinguishes two forms of agrarian landed class: those that attempt to increase their rate of return through innovation and labor-saving investment (agrarian capitalists) and those who achieved the same end through labor squeezing and coercion (labor-repressive agrarians) (Brenner 2002: 23; Moore 1993: 25, 260, 419–420, 435; Stephens 1989: 1028).2 According to Moore, because of their reliance on political mechanisms to extract surplus, labor-repressive agrarians have a strong tendency to support repressive states: “While a system of labor-repressive agriculture may be started in opposition to the central authority, it is likely to fuse with the monarchy at a later point in search of political support” (Moore 1993: 435). This alliance between the government and big landed proprietors attempting to increase their rate of return through political mechanisms is a key historical precondition for fascism in Moore’s scheme. A further component, however, is needed to produce fascism: the emergence of a “medium-strength” industrial bourgeoisie. For Moore, the attitudes of industrialists , in an economic context dominated by labor-repressive agriculture, are likely to be authoritarian. This is because the home market for manufactured goods under these circumstances is weak, since a large part of the agrarian population persists on very low wages or is removed from the money economy entirely. Considering Alternatives 151 Industrialists in this situation are likely to ally closely with the state, seeking protective tariffs and state contracts, especially for arms production, and they are likely to support the imperialist search for overseas markets (Moore 1993: 437; Stephens 1989: 1021–1025). An alliance of mutual interest thus develops among segments of agrarians and industrialists, as both seek to use state power to support their interests. Each of these actors plays a specific role in the Moore story. The agrarians are the dominant partners, while the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie are a crucial, but subordinate, ally. The main...